I want to be "Left Behind"

I've never read the "Left Behind" series (1995-2007), nor have I ever really had the desire to. Not because I was against it in any way, or trying to avoid thinking about the End Times. I've just never been one for Christian fiction.

I remember watching a movie in youth group that was about the Rapture: A Thief in the Night (1972). I don't remember a whole lot about it. What sticks out the most is a girl running and the song "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" by Larry Norman playing quite often. DC Talk has since covered this song making it popular again (at least for my generation).

From what I gather (never having read the books myself), the book series, movie and song all deal with the fact that people will be "left behind" when Jesus comes again. He will take with him the Christians and the world that remains is not one in which you would desire to be left behind.

This is what I've always believed to be true.

This morning in church, the pastor said something that really rocked my world...left me sitting there with wide eyes and, after hearing the scriptures referenced, left a half-smile on my face.

"We want to be left behind."

What?! Come again?!

"We want to be left behind."

That's what I thought you said.

Let me back up...

The sermon this morning was about "The Parable of the Weeds" found in Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43.

There are 2 kinds of people in the world: wheat & weeds.

vs. 40-42 - "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them in the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Just as you pull up weeds from your garden and throw them out, so will the angels pull up the "weeds" and throw them out.

Move ahead a few chapters in Matthew to 24:37-41.

"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left."

In the Parable of the Weeds you see that the weeds will be thrown out. The wheat is left behind in the garden.

In the flood, who was taken away? Who was left behind?

"...This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man..."

Why would there be a sudden reversal in thought and the very next verses (40-41) come to mean the righteous are taken and the wicked remain?????

Doesn't really make sense, does it?

It makes me wonder where this theory that when Jesus returns, the believers will be taken away and the non-believers will remain.

Did it come about simply as a comfort method for believers...to dwell in the happy thoughts that we wouldn't be around for things mentioned in Revelation???? I don't know.

Isaiah 65 & Revelation 21 both speak of a new heaven and new earth. Why in the world would there need to be a new earth if all believers have been taken up to heaven??? Because they haven't. They have been left behind and the earth as it was intended to be, will be.

Perfect.

"There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:4

"...I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy...the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years" Isaiah 65:18-20

I want to be left behind!!